By: Paul S. Marchand
Ron Meepos has left us, and I shall miss him.
Ron joined the city council in Rancho Mirage a few months before I joined the council in Cathedral City. Our acquaintanceship was one of representatives of rather different constituencies, but it was always a cordial one.
In our interactions with one another, I was always impressed by Ron’s unique combination of gravitas, humility, and humor. Working with him was a pleasure, and in the eight years I had the privilege of doing so, I cannot recall any of our conversations ever ending on a sour, discordant, or contentious note. In our dealings together, Ron never had a partisan or personal ax to grind. Morever, at a time when it has become fashionable in some quarters to scorn knowledge and wisdom, Ron sought to find both.
I was never one of Ron Meepos’s Rancho Mirage constituents, but I was privileged to call him a friend and a colleague.
May Adonai have Ron always in His keeping.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
OFF THE RADAR AND ON: TWO EVENTS OF NOTE IN OUR PLEASANT DESERT
By: Paul S. Marchand
Last week, two events of interest occurred in our valley, one of which quite rightly got a great deal of media attention, the other one of which should have received much more coverage than it did.
The first event, of course, was a surprisingly unanimous adoption by the Palm Springs City Council of a resolution in favor of marriage equality.
The other was the annual general assembly of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), held in La Quinta.
History, we are often told, is made by those who show up. Many of the decisions and policies that will affect the destinies of every Coachella Valley resident have their start, or are discussed and debated, at SCAG. It is the largest metropolitan/regional planning organization in the country.
During the time I served as a member of the Cathedral city city Council, I represented the Coachella Valley Association of Governments on two SCAG policy committees, Energy and Environment and Community, Economic, and Human Development. Of all of the lessons I absorbed working with colleagues from around the Southern California region, perhaps none was as important as the criticality of networking and interaction among public officials at every level.
I attended this year’s general assembly as a guest of SCAG, a courtesy extended to all former policy committee members. Though I was no longer a city Council member, I came away, as always, with a renewed sense of how important it is for our public officials to think regionally as well as locally.
Unfortunately, there are any of a number of public officials in jurisdictions around the Coachella Valley, including Cathedral City, who don’t see the importance of thinking regionally, and who do not understand how critical it is for cities to network together, to share information together, to learn from both mistakes and successes, and – where necessary – to form a united front when Sacramento and Washington City seek to burden us at the municipal level with tasks they ought to be undertaking themselves.
The worst enemy of a municipality is parochial thinking; if local officials refuse to network and interact with their peers, that municipality will inevitably and ineluctably be left behind. When decisions are made that affect our lives, our destinies, and our prosperity, every city must have a place at the table.
Too often, however, aspiring politicians seek to pander to ideological components of the so-called base without bothering to parse out the ramifications of their positions. It is easy for a Council wannabe with no knowledge of local government complain in public comment at a council meeting about local officials attending a SCAG function or serving on a commission or committee outside the city. We may perhaps indulge such rantings as the frivolous speech of the uninformed or of the bombthrower, but we must never allow such people to get close to the actual levers of power.
It’s unfortunate that the SCAG general assembly didn’t garner more attention or coverage than it did; its meetings were announced and open, and it’s unfortunate that almost nobody took up the invitation to see how public servants seek to bring back value added information to benefit their communities.
While SCAG’s general assembly passed virtually under the radar, there was no shortage of coverage of the Palm Springs city Council’s 5-0 decision to support marriage equality. I welcome the council’s adoption of such a resolution, and I particularly welcome a 5 to 0 outcome; it gives one hope that in Palm Springs, at least, the city Council is prepared to move beyond the Culture Wars, at least on this issue.
Though I have been an advocate for marriage equality for almost 20 years, — since long before it was fashionable to be such — I chose not to address my neighboring city’s council on the subject. Had I done so, I would have noted that Cathedral City was the first community in the Coachella Valley to adopt a domestic partners ordinance, well over a decade ago, and that I advocated for the ordinance’s adoption, and helped marshal support for its passage. I might also have pointed out that I was one of the first attorneys in California to take on a case challenging California’s then statutory ban on same gender marriage. But in the end, I felt that for me to go before the city Council in Palm Springs on this subject would have been grandstanding; the council needed to hear from its own residents.
Nonetheless, had I spoken, I would also have noted how tired so many of us are in the LGBT community of hearing arguments against our civil rights bottomed upon the notion that somehow our exercise of so fundamental civil right as marriage somehow imposes a burden upon the religious exercise of those who disapprove of our existence.
I grow tired of being told that someone else’s religious discomfort should trump my right of first class citizenship in the Commonwealth. I grow tired of being told that the free exercise clause of the First Amendment is a sword by which I may be deprived of my rights in order to assuage other people’s religious discomfort, rather than a shield behind which all people of faith may rest secure against government intrusion.
For there is simply no legally cognizable intrusion on anyone else’s free exercise of religion if Jonathan and David or Ruth and Naomi are able to tie the civil knot just as are Adam and Eve. There is simply no legally sustainable argument that any opponent of marriage equality can make against allowing Ruth and Naomi were Jonathan and David to be civilly married. Those who conflate marriage with matrimony demonstrate a lamentable and dangerous ignorance of both the law and basic sacramental theology.
What those who base their opposition to marriage equality upon a free exercise claim do not, cannot, or will not, understand is that if society concedes to one religion a veto over the exercise of fundamental civil rights because such exercise conflicts with a particular religion’ s tenets, it necessarily concedes to every religion the right to impose its own orthopraxy upon nonmembers of that religion.
Taken to its logical extreme, the use of free exercise as a sword, rather than a shield, would allow the orthodox Jew or the observant Muslim to veto a Christian neighbor's consumption of a pork roast accompanied by a bottle of Riesling, for both Islam and Judaism forbid the consumption of pork (as being neither kosher nor halal) and Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol. Yet again, I know of no legal argument that would support the right of the orthodox Jew or the observant Muslim to veto my enjoyment of that pork roast or glass of Riesling under color of a free exercise claim.
I will wait to see how other jurisdictions in the Coachella Valley handle marriage equality when, or if, the issue comes before those councils. And while I remain silent in other cities, I will certainly speak when this issue becomes an agenda item before my own Council, and I expect that like many of my LGBT neighbors, I will be keeping score to see which of my former colleagues considers Cathedral City’s LGBT residents to be authentic first class citizens.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served eight years on the City Council. He has been an advocate for LGBT civil rights and for marriage equality for more than two decades. The views expressed herein are his own.
Last week, two events of interest occurred in our valley, one of which quite rightly got a great deal of media attention, the other one of which should have received much more coverage than it did.
The first event, of course, was a surprisingly unanimous adoption by the Palm Springs City Council of a resolution in favor of marriage equality.
The other was the annual general assembly of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), held in La Quinta.
History, we are often told, is made by those who show up. Many of the decisions and policies that will affect the destinies of every Coachella Valley resident have their start, or are discussed and debated, at SCAG. It is the largest metropolitan/regional planning organization in the country.
During the time I served as a member of the Cathedral city city Council, I represented the Coachella Valley Association of Governments on two SCAG policy committees, Energy and Environment and Community, Economic, and Human Development. Of all of the lessons I absorbed working with colleagues from around the Southern California region, perhaps none was as important as the criticality of networking and interaction among public officials at every level.
I attended this year’s general assembly as a guest of SCAG, a courtesy extended to all former policy committee members. Though I was no longer a city Council member, I came away, as always, with a renewed sense of how important it is for our public officials to think regionally as well as locally.
Unfortunately, there are any of a number of public officials in jurisdictions around the Coachella Valley, including Cathedral City, who don’t see the importance of thinking regionally, and who do not understand how critical it is for cities to network together, to share information together, to learn from both mistakes and successes, and – where necessary – to form a united front when Sacramento and Washington City seek to burden us at the municipal level with tasks they ought to be undertaking themselves.
The worst enemy of a municipality is parochial thinking; if local officials refuse to network and interact with their peers, that municipality will inevitably and ineluctably be left behind. When decisions are made that affect our lives, our destinies, and our prosperity, every city must have a place at the table.
Too often, however, aspiring politicians seek to pander to ideological components of the so-called base without bothering to parse out the ramifications of their positions. It is easy for a Council wannabe with no knowledge of local government complain in public comment at a council meeting about local officials attending a SCAG function or serving on a commission or committee outside the city. We may perhaps indulge such rantings as the frivolous speech of the uninformed or of the bombthrower, but we must never allow such people to get close to the actual levers of power.
It’s unfortunate that the SCAG general assembly didn’t garner more attention or coverage than it did; its meetings were announced and open, and it’s unfortunate that almost nobody took up the invitation to see how public servants seek to bring back value added information to benefit their communities.
While SCAG’s general assembly passed virtually under the radar, there was no shortage of coverage of the Palm Springs city Council’s 5-0 decision to support marriage equality. I welcome the council’s adoption of such a resolution, and I particularly welcome a 5 to 0 outcome; it gives one hope that in Palm Springs, at least, the city Council is prepared to move beyond the Culture Wars, at least on this issue.
Though I have been an advocate for marriage equality for almost 20 years, — since long before it was fashionable to be such — I chose not to address my neighboring city’s council on the subject. Had I done so, I would have noted that Cathedral City was the first community in the Coachella Valley to adopt a domestic partners ordinance, well over a decade ago, and that I advocated for the ordinance’s adoption, and helped marshal support for its passage. I might also have pointed out that I was one of the first attorneys in California to take on a case challenging California’s then statutory ban on same gender marriage. But in the end, I felt that for me to go before the city Council in Palm Springs on this subject would have been grandstanding; the council needed to hear from its own residents.
Nonetheless, had I spoken, I would also have noted how tired so many of us are in the LGBT community of hearing arguments against our civil rights bottomed upon the notion that somehow our exercise of so fundamental civil right as marriage somehow imposes a burden upon the religious exercise of those who disapprove of our existence.
I grow tired of being told that someone else’s religious discomfort should trump my right of first class citizenship in the Commonwealth. I grow tired of being told that the free exercise clause of the First Amendment is a sword by which I may be deprived of my rights in order to assuage other people’s religious discomfort, rather than a shield behind which all people of faith may rest secure against government intrusion.
For there is simply no legally cognizable intrusion on anyone else’s free exercise of religion if Jonathan and David or Ruth and Naomi are able to tie the civil knot just as are Adam and Eve. There is simply no legally sustainable argument that any opponent of marriage equality can make against allowing Ruth and Naomi were Jonathan and David to be civilly married. Those who conflate marriage with matrimony demonstrate a lamentable and dangerous ignorance of both the law and basic sacramental theology.
What those who base their opposition to marriage equality upon a free exercise claim do not, cannot, or will not, understand is that if society concedes to one religion a veto over the exercise of fundamental civil rights because such exercise conflicts with a particular religion’ s tenets, it necessarily concedes to every religion the right to impose its own orthopraxy upon nonmembers of that religion.
Taken to its logical extreme, the use of free exercise as a sword, rather than a shield, would allow the orthodox Jew or the observant Muslim to veto a Christian neighbor's consumption of a pork roast accompanied by a bottle of Riesling, for both Islam and Judaism forbid the consumption of pork (as being neither kosher nor halal) and Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol. Yet again, I know of no legal argument that would support the right of the orthodox Jew or the observant Muslim to veto my enjoyment of that pork roast or glass of Riesling under color of a free exercise claim.
I will wait to see how other jurisdictions in the Coachella Valley handle marriage equality when, or if, the issue comes before those councils. And while I remain silent in other cities, I will certainly speak when this issue becomes an agenda item before my own Council, and I expect that like many of my LGBT neighbors, I will be keeping score to see which of my former colleagues considers Cathedral City’s LGBT residents to be authentic first class citizens.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served eight years on the City Council. He has been an advocate for LGBT civil rights and for marriage equality for more than two decades. The views expressed herein are his own.
Monday, May 2, 2011
PORT STANLEY, 1982-ABBOTTABAD, 2011: Thoughts on the Parallels Between Britain’s Liberation of the Falkland Islands and the Death of Osama Bin Laden; Victories for the West.
By: Paul S. Marchand
Watching last night’s celebrations following on the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US forces, I found myself reminded of the celebrations that greeted the return of British forces from the liberation of the Falkland Islands in 1982.
For as much as the death of Osama bin Laden may prove enormously consequential to the presidency of Barack Obama as we gear up for the reelection campaign of 2012, it is also, and perhaps more importantly, an event that may prove hugely consequential to the West and the world at large.
In 1982, there existed a perception in much of the world that the West was in retreat. Great Britain’s long withdrawal from “East of Suez,” the Vietnam War, and a series of other crises from which the West had seemed to emerge with a bloody nose, had had the effect of emboldening not merely the Soviet Union, but also right-wing regimes such as that in Argentina.
In April, 1982, the ruling military junta in Argentina --- faced with a growing domestic crisis of both confidence and legitimacy --- attempted to rally popular support by seeking a military solution to Argentina’s long-standing dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands.
The junta, acting on the perception that the West had lost its will for armed resistance, undertook to invade the Falklands --- believing as it did so that the U.K. would content itself with a protest in the United Nations and perhaps a few tepid economic sanctions. The junta also apparently assumed that the recently independent countries of the former British and French empires would be moved by anti-colonialist sentiment to support Argentina’s military action.
In the event, matters turned out quite differently. Her Majesty’s Government refused to accept quietly Argentina’s atavistic appeal to military force, and announced to the world that it would take whatever steps were necessary to liberate the Falklands. In operations lasting barely a matter of weeks, the British Armed Forces retook the islands and reestablished the form of government desired by the islands’ inhabitants.
Britain’s decision to fight for the Falklands, rather than allow them to become the Malvinas, sent a surprising message not only to right-wing regimes in South America that might have been contemplating the use of force to resolve other diplomatic disputes, but also to the Soviet Union. Historians on both the left and right have suggested that Britain’s willingness to fight may very well have precipitated the process of change that in the end brought down the Soviet Union. Certainly, the decision to fight for the Falklands made it clear to a watching world that the West had not been dead but merely sleeping.
Nearly 30 years on, Osama bin Laden’s death may very well have a similar Falklands Effect. For nearly a decade, Osama bin Laden had managed to evade and avoid capture or death. As a result, he had become, in some quarters, a “hero” of almost mythical stature -- the mujahid -the Islamic warrior- who had stood up to the vast power of the United States.
If today, the mujahid is dead, and the United States is the power to have compassed his death, the message the world may take from that event is that the power of the United States, and perhaps by extension, that of the West, to persevere and pursue over considerable lengths of both distance and time critical national security objectives should not be underestimated.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union underestimated the power of the West to outlast it; the West still vigorous, the Soviet Union is now an item of historical interest only. By the same token, members or supporters of Al Qaeda severely underrated the determination of both the United States government and the American people to ensure that the murder of three thousand-plus Americans on 9/11 did not go unrequited or unavenged.
The Arabs, it is said, have a proverb that the man who takes his revenge after 40 years is acting in haste. One cannot help but wonder whether Osama bin Laden, as he rusticated in a posh Pakistani palace in an upscale suburb of Islamabad, ever gave thought to this proverb.
Osama bin Laden is dead. We have understandably and justifiably celebrated that news, but the United States and the West must now redouble not only our vigilance against retaliatory attacks, but also our determination to ensure that, as the failure of the thuggish Argentine junta to hold the Falklands led to its collapse a short time later, the death of bin Laden becomes a catalyst for the destruction of Al Qaeda.
For if nothing else, the world learned anew last night that the United States has been neither dead nor sleeping.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served two terms as a city councilmember. As Cathedral City’s then-trustee on the board of the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, he recalls with pride that the Board conducted its regular meeting on the evening of September 11, 2001, refusing to be deterred by what had occurred that morning.
Watching last night’s celebrations following on the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US forces, I found myself reminded of the celebrations that greeted the return of British forces from the liberation of the Falkland Islands in 1982.
For as much as the death of Osama bin Laden may prove enormously consequential to the presidency of Barack Obama as we gear up for the reelection campaign of 2012, it is also, and perhaps more importantly, an event that may prove hugely consequential to the West and the world at large.
In 1982, there existed a perception in much of the world that the West was in retreat. Great Britain’s long withdrawal from “East of Suez,” the Vietnam War, and a series of other crises from which the West had seemed to emerge with a bloody nose, had had the effect of emboldening not merely the Soviet Union, but also right-wing regimes such as that in Argentina.
In April, 1982, the ruling military junta in Argentina --- faced with a growing domestic crisis of both confidence and legitimacy --- attempted to rally popular support by seeking a military solution to Argentina’s long-standing dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands.
The junta, acting on the perception that the West had lost its will for armed resistance, undertook to invade the Falklands --- believing as it did so that the U.K. would content itself with a protest in the United Nations and perhaps a few tepid economic sanctions. The junta also apparently assumed that the recently independent countries of the former British and French empires would be moved by anti-colonialist sentiment to support Argentina’s military action.
In the event, matters turned out quite differently. Her Majesty’s Government refused to accept quietly Argentina’s atavistic appeal to military force, and announced to the world that it would take whatever steps were necessary to liberate the Falklands. In operations lasting barely a matter of weeks, the British Armed Forces retook the islands and reestablished the form of government desired by the islands’ inhabitants.
Britain’s decision to fight for the Falklands, rather than allow them to become the Malvinas, sent a surprising message not only to right-wing regimes in South America that might have been contemplating the use of force to resolve other diplomatic disputes, but also to the Soviet Union. Historians on both the left and right have suggested that Britain’s willingness to fight may very well have precipitated the process of change that in the end brought down the Soviet Union. Certainly, the decision to fight for the Falklands made it clear to a watching world that the West had not been dead but merely sleeping.
Nearly 30 years on, Osama bin Laden’s death may very well have a similar Falklands Effect. For nearly a decade, Osama bin Laden had managed to evade and avoid capture or death. As a result, he had become, in some quarters, a “hero” of almost mythical stature -- the mujahid -the Islamic warrior- who had stood up to the vast power of the United States.
If today, the mujahid is dead, and the United States is the power to have compassed his death, the message the world may take from that event is that the power of the United States, and perhaps by extension, that of the West, to persevere and pursue over considerable lengths of both distance and time critical national security objectives should not be underestimated.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union underestimated the power of the West to outlast it; the West still vigorous, the Soviet Union is now an item of historical interest only. By the same token, members or supporters of Al Qaeda severely underrated the determination of both the United States government and the American people to ensure that the murder of three thousand-plus Americans on 9/11 did not go unrequited or unavenged.
The Arabs, it is said, have a proverb that the man who takes his revenge after 40 years is acting in haste. One cannot help but wonder whether Osama bin Laden, as he rusticated in a posh Pakistani palace in an upscale suburb of Islamabad, ever gave thought to this proverb.
Osama bin Laden is dead. We have understandably and justifiably celebrated that news, but the United States and the West must now redouble not only our vigilance against retaliatory attacks, but also our determination to ensure that, as the failure of the thuggish Argentine junta to hold the Falklands led to its collapse a short time later, the death of bin Laden becomes a catalyst for the destruction of Al Qaeda.
For if nothing else, the world learned anew last night that the United States has been neither dead nor sleeping.
-xxx-
PAUL S. MARCHAND is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served two terms as a city councilmember. As Cathedral City’s then-trustee on the board of the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, he recalls with pride that the Board conducted its regular meeting on the evening of September 11, 2001, refusing to be deterred by what had occurred that morning.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
THE MOMENT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR
It hath pleased Almighty God to grant to American arms a most signal victory; Osama bin Laden is dead.
God save the United States.
After almost ten years, Osama bin Laden is dead, and dead at American hands.
On one level, the killing of bin Laden does nothing more than fulfill a visceral back-of-the-lizard-part of the brain need for vengeance.
On another level, bin Laden’s liquidation has sent a message to both friend and foe alike that the American people is not one to leave pressing business unfinished.
On still another level, it has demonstrated that America has not lost the ability to undertake great and risky enterprises when the cause is just.
And the cause is just.
For Osama bin Laden was not merely a criminal; he was not merely an enemy of the United States, he was also an enemy of all of civilized humankind, irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity or political affiliation.
So, on this night when the news of bin Laden’s well-deserved death at the hands of the nation he worked so diligently to harm, we may be excused for a sense of thankfulness that we have won a great victory.
But we have won a battle. Whether we have won the larger war against violent extremism remains an open question.
Avengers of bin Laden may emerge, and they will no doubt seek to harm this country and our allies, and we must remain on the qui vive against such efforts.
Nevertheless, tonight we may give thanks for those who undertook the operation, for those who planned it, and for those who never forgot how important it was to bring bin Laden to justice or to put him to death.
Tonight, we hear not only the chant “U.S.A,” but also “yes we can.”
Tonight, “yes we can” has ceased to be a campaign cry; instead, it has become an affirmation of what America is capable of.
So tonight, “Yes we can,” has become indeed a reminder that Yes We Did.
Tonight, therefore, let us come together to offer to the dead of September 11, 2001, the assurance that their deaths have not gone unavenged.
As we thank God for granting to American arms a signal victory in the death of Osama bin Laden, we may -must- also beseech our God to grant to the dead of 9-11 rest and repose, and that light perpetual may shine upon them.
Requiem Æternam dona eis domine, and God Bless America.
God save the United States.
After almost ten years, Osama bin Laden is dead, and dead at American hands.
On one level, the killing of bin Laden does nothing more than fulfill a visceral back-of-the-lizard-part of the brain need for vengeance.
On another level, bin Laden’s liquidation has sent a message to both friend and foe alike that the American people is not one to leave pressing business unfinished.
On still another level, it has demonstrated that America has not lost the ability to undertake great and risky enterprises when the cause is just.
And the cause is just.
For Osama bin Laden was not merely a criminal; he was not merely an enemy of the United States, he was also an enemy of all of civilized humankind, irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity or political affiliation.
So, on this night when the news of bin Laden’s well-deserved death at the hands of the nation he worked so diligently to harm, we may be excused for a sense of thankfulness that we have won a great victory.
But we have won a battle. Whether we have won the larger war against violent extremism remains an open question.
Avengers of bin Laden may emerge, and they will no doubt seek to harm this country and our allies, and we must remain on the qui vive against such efforts.
Nevertheless, tonight we may give thanks for those who undertook the operation, for those who planned it, and for those who never forgot how important it was to bring bin Laden to justice or to put him to death.
Tonight, we hear not only the chant “U.S.A,” but also “yes we can.”
Tonight, “yes we can” has ceased to be a campaign cry; instead, it has become an affirmation of what America is capable of.
So tonight, “Yes we can,” has become indeed a reminder that Yes We Did.
Tonight, therefore, let us come together to offer to the dead of September 11, 2001, the assurance that their deaths have not gone unavenged.
As we thank God for granting to American arms a signal victory in the death of Osama bin Laden, we may -must- also beseech our God to grant to the dead of 9-11 rest and repose, and that light perpetual may shine upon them.
Requiem Æternam dona eis domine, and God Bless America.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
A VOID IN OUR COMMUNITY
By: Paul S. Marchand
Some news you hope never comes.
But sometimes it does. Last night, Cathedral City lost one of our family when CCPD Ofc. Jermaine Gibson died in the line of duty.
The loss of Jermaine Gibson has opened up a void in the Department of which he was a member, but it has also opened a void in the larger city family that includes all of us who have at some time been or currently are a part of that unique and close-knit community. Losing a present or former member of the city family is hard enough. Losing somebody in the line of duty is even more difficult.
During my time of service on the City Council, our extended city family bade final farewells to any of a number of its members who had succumbed to a variety of the ailments that, in due time, must carry us all off, but never in the eight years I had the honor to serve this community, did any of us on the Council ever have to confront the sudden shock of losing one of our officers so unexpectedly. Not since 1988 -almost a generation ago- has Cathedral City lost an officer in the line; the City family has little institutional memory to help it absorb so sudden, shocking, and tragic a loss.
The very suddenness of Ofc. Gibson’s death only intensifies the blow. Usually when one of our members has been facing the end of life, our city family had had some measure of time to prepare, to make ourselves ready for the event we hoped would not come, but which we nonetheless understood had to come. But not this time; things happened too quickly.
One of the suffrages in the Great Litany in the Book of Common Prayer is that we may be delivered “from violence, battle and murder, and from dying suddenly and unprepared.” For when death comes suddenly, without opportunity for farewells, the normal order of the world seems upended, and there is no time for saying or doing what ought to be said and done -for getting ready for the departure, as it were.
There are few words any of us can say to the Gibson family -particularly to an infant son who will never grow up knowing his father- that might, as Abraham Lincoln once wrote in his famous letter to Mrs. Bixby, that “which should attempt to beguile ... from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.” Instead, as Pres. Lincoln did, we can but tender the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the community to whose service Jermaine Gibson dedicated the ultimate offering.
May his soul, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them.
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served two terms on the City Council. The views expressed herein are his own, and are not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
Some news you hope never comes.
But sometimes it does. Last night, Cathedral City lost one of our family when CCPD Ofc. Jermaine Gibson died in the line of duty.
The loss of Jermaine Gibson has opened up a void in the Department of which he was a member, but it has also opened a void in the larger city family that includes all of us who have at some time been or currently are a part of that unique and close-knit community. Losing a present or former member of the city family is hard enough. Losing somebody in the line of duty is even more difficult.
During my time of service on the City Council, our extended city family bade final farewells to any of a number of its members who had succumbed to a variety of the ailments that, in due time, must carry us all off, but never in the eight years I had the honor to serve this community, did any of us on the Council ever have to confront the sudden shock of losing one of our officers so unexpectedly. Not since 1988 -almost a generation ago- has Cathedral City lost an officer in the line; the City family has little institutional memory to help it absorb so sudden, shocking, and tragic a loss.
The very suddenness of Ofc. Gibson’s death only intensifies the blow. Usually when one of our members has been facing the end of life, our city family had had some measure of time to prepare, to make ourselves ready for the event we hoped would not come, but which we nonetheless understood had to come. But not this time; things happened too quickly.
One of the suffrages in the Great Litany in the Book of Common Prayer is that we may be delivered “from violence, battle and murder, and from dying suddenly and unprepared.” For when death comes suddenly, without opportunity for farewells, the normal order of the world seems upended, and there is no time for saying or doing what ought to be said and done -for getting ready for the departure, as it were.
There are few words any of us can say to the Gibson family -particularly to an infant son who will never grow up knowing his father- that might, as Abraham Lincoln once wrote in his famous letter to Mrs. Bixby, that “which should attempt to beguile ... from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.” Instead, as Pres. Lincoln did, we can but tender the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the community to whose service Jermaine Gibson dedicated the ultimate offering.
May his soul, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them.
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, where he served two terms on the City Council. The views expressed herein are his own, and are not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
THE CHOICE FOR CALM OR VIOLENCE IS THEIRS: THE CHALLENGE FOR THREE MIDWESTERN GOVERNORS
It’s too early to tell.
-Attributed in various phrasings to sometime Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976), when asked sometime after 1949 about the impact of the French Revolution of 1789.
Ils n'ont rien appris, ni rien oublié
(They have learned nothing and they have forgotten nothing)
-Attr. to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, sometime Bishop of Autun and Foreign Minister of France under the First Empire and the Restoration, spoken of the Bourbon dynasty.
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
-Abraham Lincoln, First Message to Congress on the State of the Union, December 3, 1861
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
-Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.... We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.
-Abraham Lincoln, Second Message to Congress on the State of the Union, December 1, 1862
To put it mildly, “things are happening” in the American Midwest that may well determine the future of organized labor throughout the United States.
In Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, Republican governors are locked in battle with public sector workers and their unions. While the ostensible issue is the existence of budget deficits in each of the three states, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker spilled the beans yesterday by acknowledging in effect that the larger agenda he and several of his fellow GOP governors are pursuing is to use their states’ fiscal woes (real or contrived) as a vehicle for destroying their public sector unions. Whether Wisconsin’s Walker, Ohio’s Kasich, or Indiana’s Daniels will be able to push such agenda to the conclusions they desire is still an open question. As Zhou Enlai might have put it, it’s far too early to tell.
Unfortunately, it does appear that the Governor of Wisconsin, at least, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing when it comes to trying to crush the protesters who have inconvenienced him and his supporters. While we may chuckle with amusement at the fact that Gov. Walker got “punk’d” by a liberal blogger from Buffalo, we should be anything but amused by the governor’s acknowledgment that he and his staff had apparently given serious consideration to the use of agents provocateurs in an effort to stir up trouble and, presumably, provide justification for some sort of muscular intervention by either the local police or by the Wisconsin National Guard. Does Mr. Walker truly desire a repetition of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago?
Certainly, that appears to be the position of some on the more unreconstructed right. Yesterday, Jeff Cox, a deputy Indiana Attorney General, was fired after tweeting that the demonstrators were “political enemies” and “thugs,” and that he advocated using “deadly force” against them. Not surprisingly, Cox is now being lionized as a martyr by some who seem to share his views and who have a large soapbox from which to promulgate them.
When public officials contemplate the use of deliberate provocation to trigger unrest or violence, and when other public officials advocate the use of deadly force against peaceful protesters, something is deeply wrong. Now is the time for those who bear the authority of government to stop and ask whether the eliminationist rhetoric has gone too far.
For whatever may be anybody’s opinions on the issue of labor and unions, nobody should be advocating what amounts to violent civil unrest in the streets and public places of America. We would be well-advised to remember the words of that Republican president, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, who wrote:
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
Such words, if spoken today, would probably drive some of our more unhinged voices to claim that Pres. Lincoln had deserved assassination at the hands of the traitor John Wilkes Booth.
Rather than engage in cynical calculations about whether stirring up violence to discredit demonstrators availing themselves of the right of peaceable assembly, the Governors of Indiana should remember not only the Peaceable Assembly guarantee the First Amendment of the United States Constitution but also the similar guarantees contained in Section 4 of Article I of the Wisconsin Constitution, and Section 31 of Article I of the Indiana Constitution, respectively.
More than that, however, public officials at every level should remember that every one of their constituents has an equal call on their service and their solicitude. The greatest challenge for any elected or appointed official is to internalize that basic truth, that even when officials and constituents differ on issues, they are members alike of a commonwealth, and that the commonwealth cannot stand when officials sworn to its service regard some proportion of their constituents as enemies to be provoked into violence, that they may more easily be crushed with whatever force -even deadly force- may be considered appropriate.
The temptation to use a whiff of grapeshot, to want to repeat the tactics of Napoleon on 18 Brumaire, is one that no American public official should contemplate, and which no American citizen should accept. Passions may run high, but public officials and influence-makers owe the commonwealth a higher duty than to appeal to force, violence, or other similar methods to overcome or overawe those who disagree with their views.
Lincoln himself put it best when he reminded a fracturing nation that: "[w]e are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
How the governors of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana respond to peaceful protest will, to borrow more words of Lincoln, “light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.... We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”
The choice is theirs. Let us hope they make the right one.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney in Cathedral City, where he served two terms on the City Council. The views expressed herein are his own.
Note: Comments will be strictly moderated. Any calls for the use of deadly force will be forwarded to appropriate authorities.
-Attributed in various phrasings to sometime Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976), when asked sometime after 1949 about the impact of the French Revolution of 1789.
Ils n'ont rien appris, ni rien oublié
(They have learned nothing and they have forgotten nothing)
-Attr. to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, sometime Bishop of Autun and Foreign Minister of France under the First Empire and the Restoration, spoken of the Bourbon dynasty.
Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
-Abraham Lincoln, First Message to Congress on the State of the Union, December 3, 1861
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
-Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.... We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.
-Abraham Lincoln, Second Message to Congress on the State of the Union, December 1, 1862
To put it mildly, “things are happening” in the American Midwest that may well determine the future of organized labor throughout the United States.
In Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, Republican governors are locked in battle with public sector workers and their unions. While the ostensible issue is the existence of budget deficits in each of the three states, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker spilled the beans yesterday by acknowledging in effect that the larger agenda he and several of his fellow GOP governors are pursuing is to use their states’ fiscal woes (real or contrived) as a vehicle for destroying their public sector unions. Whether Wisconsin’s Walker, Ohio’s Kasich, or Indiana’s Daniels will be able to push such agenda to the conclusions they desire is still an open question. As Zhou Enlai might have put it, it’s far too early to tell.
Unfortunately, it does appear that the Governor of Wisconsin, at least, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing when it comes to trying to crush the protesters who have inconvenienced him and his supporters. While we may chuckle with amusement at the fact that Gov. Walker got “punk’d” by a liberal blogger from Buffalo, we should be anything but amused by the governor’s acknowledgment that he and his staff had apparently given serious consideration to the use of agents provocateurs in an effort to stir up trouble and, presumably, provide justification for some sort of muscular intervention by either the local police or by the Wisconsin National Guard. Does Mr. Walker truly desire a repetition of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago?
Certainly, that appears to be the position of some on the more unreconstructed right. Yesterday, Jeff Cox, a deputy Indiana Attorney General, was fired after tweeting that the demonstrators were “political enemies” and “thugs,” and that he advocated using “deadly force” against them. Not surprisingly, Cox is now being lionized as a martyr by some who seem to share his views and who have a large soapbox from which to promulgate them.
When public officials contemplate the use of deliberate provocation to trigger unrest or violence, and when other public officials advocate the use of deadly force against peaceful protesters, something is deeply wrong. Now is the time for those who bear the authority of government to stop and ask whether the eliminationist rhetoric has gone too far.
For whatever may be anybody’s opinions on the issue of labor and unions, nobody should be advocating what amounts to violent civil unrest in the streets and public places of America. We would be well-advised to remember the words of that Republican president, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, who wrote:
"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
Such words, if spoken today, would probably drive some of our more unhinged voices to claim that Pres. Lincoln had deserved assassination at the hands of the traitor John Wilkes Booth.
Rather than engage in cynical calculations about whether stirring up violence to discredit demonstrators availing themselves of the right of peaceable assembly, the Governors of Indiana should remember not only the Peaceable Assembly guarantee the First Amendment of the United States Constitution but also the similar guarantees contained in Section 4 of Article I of the Wisconsin Constitution, and Section 31 of Article I of the Indiana Constitution, respectively.
More than that, however, public officials at every level should remember that every one of their constituents has an equal call on their service and their solicitude. The greatest challenge for any elected or appointed official is to internalize that basic truth, that even when officials and constituents differ on issues, they are members alike of a commonwealth, and that the commonwealth cannot stand when officials sworn to its service regard some proportion of their constituents as enemies to be provoked into violence, that they may more easily be crushed with whatever force -even deadly force- may be considered appropriate.
The temptation to use a whiff of grapeshot, to want to repeat the tactics of Napoleon on 18 Brumaire, is one that no American public official should contemplate, and which no American citizen should accept. Passions may run high, but public officials and influence-makers owe the commonwealth a higher duty than to appeal to force, violence, or other similar methods to overcome or overawe those who disagree with their views.
Lincoln himself put it best when he reminded a fracturing nation that: "[w]e are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
How the governors of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana respond to peaceful protest will, to borrow more words of Lincoln, “light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.... We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”
The choice is theirs. Let us hope they make the right one.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney in Cathedral City, where he served two terms on the City Council. The views expressed herein are his own.
Note: Comments will be strictly moderated. Any calls for the use of deadly force will be forwarded to appropriate authorities.
Friday, February 11, 2011
A TALE OF FOUR CITIES: EVENTS ON THE NILE
Ten Days That Shook the World
-Title of a book by John Reed, describing the October Revolution.
A revolution is not a tea party.
-Mao Zedong
And so it begins....
-From Babylon 5, “Chrysalis”
A beginning is a delicate time.
-From Frank Herbert, Dune
Luan (chaos) is not something that appeals to old men.
-variously attributed to various “Old China Hands” during the runup to the Tiananmen Square massacre, June, 1989
As always, it is the best of times; it is the worst of times.
In contemplating the departure of outgoing Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak, one can’t help but think of a tale of four cities: Petrograd, Manila, Beijing, Cairo.
Each of these cities shares a number of things in common. Each is (or was) a national capital, each has a long history, and each has been a seat of revolution.
Though the heady days of 1917's October Revolution in Petrograd are nearly a century behind us, even the most cursory reading of John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World brings immediately to mind the violent, tumultuous events that led to the Bolshevik takeover of the Russian state. “A revolution,” Mao Zedong rightly points out, “is not a tea party.”
Closer to our own time, we recall the People Power Revolution of 1986,that astonishing, powerful, nonviolent movement in Manila that brought the kleptocracy of Ferdinand Marcos and his incredible wife Imelda (She of a Million Shoes) to a long overdue conclusion.
Yet we also recall the ultimately tragic events that occurred just three years later, in Beijing, when the Chinese leadership had no compunction about using the full power of the People’s Liberation Army to crush the nonviolent demonstrators who had for weeks occupied Tiananmen Square. The televised coverage of the destruction of the “Goddess of Liberty” that had been erected facing Tiananmen itself remains seared in the memory of a generation.
So now, we come to Cairo. Mubarak is gone, but it is still far too early to know what may happen next. We may say “and so it begins,” but we are not sure what has actually begun. All we know is that a beginning is a very delicate time, particularly since we cannot know just how the various forces with Egyptian politics and society are interacting or will interact, and how they balance.
At this hour, there seems to be joy in Cairo --and indeed, throughout Egypt-- but joy can quickly become chaos, the sort of chaos for which the Chinese --denizens, like their Egyptian counterparts, of one of the oldest societies on earth-- have a unique word, Luan.
Luan, as several Old China Hands pointed out at the time of the events of Tiananmen Square, is not something that appeals to old men, including Hosni Mubarak or Omar Suleiman. Neither does luan appeal to military leaders nor to American presidents. This fear of luan will, in all likelihood, be a large part of what drives coming events.
At the moment, it appears that the Egyptian military, which is always been a significant player in that country’s post-King Farouk politics, will emerge as the primary shot-caller, at least for the short-term. Certainly, even an ostensibly civilian government will find itself guided by, and heavily dependent upon, the generals.
Cairo in 2011 may wind up looking rather like Berlin in 1919, when the struggling government of the Weimar Republic made common cause with the German military. In what many consider to have been the Faustian bargain that doomed the Weimar Republic, its leadership and the then-chief of the general staff, Gen. Wilhelm Groener, agreed that each would protect the other; the German army would protect the new government against efforts to overthrow it, while the government would protect the Army against efforts to reduce its role and status in the politics of post-imperial Germany.
It would hardly be surprising to see a similar development occur along the banks of the Nile; whatever government emerges in a post-Mubarak Egypt will need the support of the Egyptian military, particularly if the Muslim Brotherhood chooses to become hostile. By the same token, the military, which has been in many ways Egypt’s ruling class, and the primary beneficiary of Egyptian economic development since it overthrew King Farouk in 1953, will need the letigimacy that --in 2011-- only a democratic civilian government can confer..
At this point, however, it does appear safe to envisage an hypothesis that a democratic government may emerge, albeit in fits and starts, if it can avoid making the mistakes the Weimar Republic made. It took the Philippines years before that country’s democratic government was able to emerge from a period of post-Marcos instability. What neither the West, nor, it appears, the Egyptian public, desires is the emergence either of an Islamist regime or of a charismatic socialist of the Gamal Abdel Nasser type, at least not now.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the Eighteen Days of Cairo has been the relative powerlessness of the outside world to influence events; certainly, the shot-callers of these events have been the Cairenes themselves, not any outside force or infiltrators, Glenn Beck and King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia notwithstanding. If there is anything we have learned over the last 18 days it has been at the events unfolding in Egypt have been driven, in no small degree, by the Egyptian middle class; this is not a religious rising, but a bourgeois revolution, more akin to that which drove King Charles X from the French throne in 1830 than to the events of Petrograd in 1917 or Beijing in 1989.
If a moderate regime, even one with military participation or overtones, emerges in Cairo the challenge for the international community will be to engage with that regime in such a way as to support it without triggering a nationalist or Islamist backlash. It is too early to say how the international community will address such a challenge, but addressed it must be. How and in what measure the international community does so may very well determine whether, in coming years, an authentic Egyptian democracy emerges, or is throttled in its cradle by reactionary forces dressed either in clerical attire or military uniform.
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